The history of the Jewish community of the city is closely connected with the history of Jewish settlement in our country.

The first mention of Jews living on the territory of the modern Ukrainian state dates back to the 1st century B.C. The emergence of large Jewish communities is associated with the victories of Prince Svyatoslav over the Khazars in 965, when some of the captured Jews were settled in Kiev. In the 13th century, Jews from Germany and Eastern Europe settled in the Galicia-Volyn principality. The flow of these settlers increased at the end of the XV century, when the Jews of Germany were persecuted by Emperor Maximilian I. Thus was formed the Jewish community of Ukraine, which, having passed through many trials, through pogroms, the terrible years of Bogdan Khmelnitsky’s uprising, the Holocaust, and the communist regime, has survived to this day. One of the most important centers for the development of Jewish life in Ukraine was and remains the city of Dnipro, formerly Dnipropetrovsk and Yekaterinoslav.

The history of the local Jewish community begins practically from the founding of the city in 1776. In 1791, Empress Catherine II issued a decree “On granting Jews citizenship in the Ekaterinoslav governorate and the Tauride region. And already in 1793 Jews rushed to Ekaterinoslav, then a provincial city. By the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries the number of Jewish population of the city exceeded 300 people, and in the province Jews lived about a thousand. They actively contributed to the development of the city; for example, the first stone house in Yekaterinoslav was built by merchant Hirsh Lutskiy in the first third of the XIX century. Jewish merchants were also engaged in the transportation of flax – one of the main export articles of the province – across the rapids, along the Dnieper, to Odessa. But mostly the Jews of Yekaterinoslav in those times were tailors – about a quarter of the Jewish families of the city were engaged in this business.

The economic history of Yekaterinoslav-Dnepropetrovsk – the metallurgical center of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and modern Ukraine – also began when a Jew Zaslavsky built an iron foundry on Liteynaya Street in 1832. In 1833 Neiman’s cloth factory was opened.

The cultural life of the city has also always been tIn 1843, merchant Abram Iosifovich Lutskiy built a stone theater building. In 1843, merchant Abram Iosifovich Lutsky built a stone theater building. Until 1885 this theater was the main center of cultural life in Yekaterinoslav: the best touring companies, including Berger’s troupe with Italian singers and the Ukrainian troupes of Kropivnitsky and Staritsky, gave performances here.

At that time, the Jews of Yekaterinoslav made up 15% of the city’s population. Naturally, the city needed a large synagogue, and in the middle of the XIX century the Choral Synagogue was opened, which in the 90s of the XX century was named “Golden Rose”. It was built on the site of a wooden synagogue building that burned down in 1833 and was built in 1800. “Golden Rose” for many years became one of the attractions of the city due to its exquisite architectural solutions.

In 1897, Jews made up more than 36% of the city’s population, and Jewish industrialists owned about a quarter of the enterprises in Yekaterinoslav province. In the early years of the 20th century, Spector, a Jew, built one of the best movie theaters in the Russian Empire for a thousand seats.

In the 1900s Jewish life in Ekaterinoslav, despite the pogroms that swept through the city, was diverse and active. Jewish plays were staged, new synagogues and prayer houses, hospitals and educational institutions were built. Jews participated in the work of the City Duma, Levi-Itzhok Shneerson was elected the chief rabbi of the city, the Ekaterinoslav Jewish Polytechnic Institute was opened… But the development of Jewish life was stopped: first by the revolution and the Civil War, then by the anti-Jewish, anti-religious policy of the Soviet authorities. By the end of the 20s and the beginning of the 30s, almost all synagogues in the city were closed, including the Choral Synagogue. This led to the fact that in 1932, when new passports with the famous “fifth column” were introduced, many Jews changed their surnames and indicated their non-Jewish nationality.

In the second half of the 1930s, a wave of Stalinist repression peaked throughout the country, which also affected the city’s Jewish population. Many Jews were arrested and shot on charges of creating “Zionist spy organizations”. The Chief Rabbi of Yekaterinoslav-Dnepropetrovsk Levi Yitzhok Shneerson, who during all the years of Soviet power actively helped Jews to observe Jewish laws and was a real spiritual leader of the Jewish community of those years, was arrested and exiled to Kazakhstan. The Jewish population of the city in those years exceeded 40 percent.

On August 25, 1941, Dnepropetrovsk was occupied by Nazi troops. The Jewish community of the city fully experienced the horror of the Holocaust – in October of that year, more than 11,000 Jewish residents of Dnepropetrovsk were shot.

After the end of the war, the Jewish community of the city attempts to reacquire the synagogue building, but is refused. The community was left with only the building at 7 Kotsyubinskogo Street (now called the Small Synagogue). The Small Synagogue remained the only functioning synagogue in the city until 2000.

The anti-Semitic hysteria of 1949-53 did not pass over Dnepropetrovsk. On the celebration of Rosh Hashonah in September 1952, the synagogue was pelted with stones. Anti-Semitic articles appeared in the local press. There were widespread inspections in medical institutions in connection with the “doctors’ case,” and anti-Jewish campaigns began in the institutions and enterprises of Dnepropetrovsk. Only the death of I. Stalin’s death in March 1953 stopped this bacchanalia, but the Soviet government’s anti-Jewish policy did not end. The anti-Israel policy of the USSR implied constant control over the activities of Jewish communities, which intensified from year to year. By the 1980s, only a handful of elderly Jews came to the Small Synagogue, and only on major holidays did a noticeable number of people gather there.

Due to the changes in the life of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, the first attempts to revive Jewish life and establish Jewish cultural and community organizations are made in Dnepropetrovsk. However, the real beginning of the Jewish revival in Dnepropetrovsk began with the arrival of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s envoy Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky and his wife, Rebetzn Hana, in June 1990.

Since June 1990, the revival of Jewish life in Dnepropetrovsk has been developing at an increasing pace. In 1991, a Jewish school was opened, which in a short period of time became one of the largest in Europe. Charitable foundations and cultural organizations are opened. In 1992 more than 5 thousand Jews take part in the grandiose Hanukkah concert in the Palace of Sports “Meteor”. Close ties are established with the Jewish community of Boston, thanks to which a women’s gynecological clinic and a children’s polyclinic are opened in Dnepropetrovsk, vaccination of children and newborns is carried out, unique medical equipment is installed in a number of hospitals, programs to support microcredit for women at risk, help children from single-parent families “Big Brother – Big Sister”, rehabilitation of children with special needs (cerebral palsy, autism) are opened. A prosthetic project is underway for femoral neck fractures and more.

Developed infrastructure of the developed Jewish community is created, the building of the choral synagogue “Golden Rose” is reconstructed (2000). A home for elderly people “Beit Borukh” is created (2002). A unique children’s educational center “Beit Zindlikht” is opened (2003). A charitable canteen “Beit Beruch” is opened. And many other things.

In 2012, the world’s largest Jewish center “Menorah” was opened. Since its opening, the Menorah Center has become an important landmark of the city, hosting the most important not only Jewish but also city events, as well as forums and events of national and international level. The Menorah Center houses such important institutions as the Museum of Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine and the Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies “Tkuma”; the Consulate of the State of Israel and honorary consulates of some European countries; the Jewish Medical Center; educational, cultural and social foundations and organizations, as well as objects of cultural and business infrastructure – conference rooms and celebration halls, as well as the hospitality industry. The Menorah hosts major forums, conferences, social events, concerts, receptions, celebrations and other events.